1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to communication protocols, and more specifically to a method and apparatus for reestablishing a connection when a block/device at one end is re-initialized.
2. Related Art
Connections are generally provided to enable communication between end devices. As is well known, connections can be of unicast type (one end device at either end of the connection), multicast type (one end device sending data to specific set of end devices) or broadcast type (one end device to all end devices). Once a connection is established, a sender device (one of the end devices) may send data to the receiving device(s) to enable various applications.
An end device (or a block with the end device) may need to be re-initialized after being set up and used by an application. For example, the end device may become non-operational after accurate operation for a while, and may thus need to be replaced. All the components (including software) within such a replaced end-device may be re-initialized.
There is often a need to reestablish a connection that existed prior to re-initialization. For example, a receiver device in a control system may be designed to receive various inputs from different sender devices and perform various control operations. Even if one of the sender devices becomes non-operational temporarily, the receiver device may continue to operate (but possibly with degraded performance). When the operation of the non-operational device is restored (by replacement, reboot, etc.), it may be desirable to reestablish the prior connection such that the receiving device can then continue operations based on any inputs that may be generated by the restored device.